While cleaning, I came across a sketch I started of some Myrys characters, from Amber, way back when. Deborah, who played Myrr (on the far left; the other two are Rynnaen and Piotr), wanted to see it despite my protestations that it wasn’t very good, so I scanned it in. (Lazy scan; it’s bigger than my screen bed and so the halves don’t quite match up, but it wasn’t worth making it match.) And while we were discussing it, I said, “An hour a day. If I practiced for an hour a day, I’d be good at drawing.” Morgan opined that the operative term there was better, as I was already good.
This brought to mind a bunch of things. One was Robin’s posting today about creativity and how she doesn’t expect a professional artist (of any sort) to have more than one professional-caliber outlet for their creativity if they expect to succeed. I’m not sure I strictly agree with that, nor am I sure I strictly disagree with it, but that’s not the point right now.
Another thing it brought to mind is that I think I was about sixteen the first time somebody told me I was too hard on myself. I don’t remember what the context was, exactly, except I’m pretty sure it had to do with creativity, as it was my photography teacher who said it to me.
It also makes me think about the discipline of creativity. People are forever admiring my discipline when it comes to writing.
I’m about to share a vicious truth.
I have never had to sit down and say, “I have to practice to get better at this,” when it comes to writing. I’ve always just done it. For me, it’s not a matter of discipline to improve my skill, not the way I think of needing to sit down and practice daily in order to become a good artist. I mean, okay, yes, I see where it takes discipline to sit down and do the writing every day whether you want to or not, yadda yadda, I understand that, but for me, I really don’t think writing is a matter of discipline any more than breathing is. It is effectively that part of my natural makeup includes the willingness to sit down and write regularly and to get better and to learn more about the craft and all of that stuff that makes a professional writer. I don’t feel like I’m extending any great effort toward achieving proficiency, because it’s just what I do. Does that make sense?
Drawing, on the other hand. I am an adequate (and alliterate!) artist. I am, most especially, good enough to know how good I’m not. Other people are far more generous in praise regarding my artwork than I am, but I truly believe that if I had the discipline, I could become a professional-quality artist, and to me, *discipline* seems like sitting down for an hour a day to practice, even if I’m not particularly good to begin with. I’ve *always* been a good writer. I can put words together and make a story of them; I’ve always been able to do it. Putting lines together and making a picture of them is much more difficult, and in order to move beyond adequacy requires a discipline that I think I ought to have because people are always saying how disciplined I am to write. But I’ve just realized they’re not the same kinds of creatures for me.
Same thing goes for photography, actually, except I’m a better photographer than I am artist. I was good enough at photography to get a scholarship for it, and I really love it, but haven’t, in the last fifteen years, had sufficient discipline to pursue it actively. I’d really .like. to do that, just as I’d really .like. to become an actually good artist, but I haven’t developed, or got, the discipline.
Now, to touch on Robin’s commentary about professional-level creativity: I see where she’s coming from. Any creative endeavor is a significant use of energy, and it is, I think, harder to be talented in many fields and succeed in all, or several, than to do so in one which is your primary focus. I don’t have any particular desire or need to become a professional artist or photographer, as in, someone who tries to make her living from that pursuit. I do, however, think I’ve got it in me to achieve professional-level work in those fields. On a personal level, that’s what I’d be interested in accomplishing. If I ever got good enough at sequential art or pen and ink, would I draw my own comic book or do my own cover art? Yeah, I would. If I ever got good enough at photography to sell prints, would I? Of course. Am I dedicated enough to those things to risk my writing career? No way.
But for personal satisfaction, those would be big things to pull off. So, okay, what do I do to get that discipline to pursue those ends? I’m not born with it. The magic switch in my head hasn’t switched, as it did with weight loss, into an “I’m ready to do this” setting. Do I set aside an hour after lunch every day to draw? How do I make myself do it? How does it not slip into, “Eh, I can do it later,” as so many things do? Do I hire a teacher to stand over me and bark orders? I donno. But it’s interesting to think about.